Geelong West gives up five goal lead as Leopold pulls off comeback win

Geelong West blew a five goal lead as Leopold stormed home with an exhilarating comeback. But despite a frustrating season, the Giants have high hopes for the future.

Leopold ran over the top of Geelong West. Picture: Mark Wilson

Geelong West coach Greg Mellor believes his side has the potential to become a finals side in the Geelong Football Netball League but the Giants’ disappointing finish in their loss to Leopold showed they have some way to go.

The Giants looked like pulling off an upset when they shot out to 30-point lead against the Lions at West Oval, but the visitors piled on 11 goals of the next 15 goals in an exhilarating comeback after that to win by 13-points.

The result all but ended Geelong West’s slim finals hopes, with the Giants four wins outside the top-five.

Prolific midfielder Tanner Lovell was the standout for the Giants as forward Patrick Eastman kicked a bag of five goals after passing a pre-game fitness test.

For the Lions it was the usual suspects Brock Williamson, Marcus Thompson and Connor Giddings (four goals) who starred.

Patrick Eastman kicked five goals for the Giants. Picture: Mark Wilson

Leopold kicked the last five goals of the match as the Giants managed just four behinds in the final term as they suffered their third close loss of the season.

The Giants also suffered agonising defeats to Bell Park by one-point after Phil Moimoi’s miss at the death and led Newtown & Chillwell late in the final quarter in round seven before being overrun.

The out-of-contract Mellor is set to stay at Geelong West beyond 2024 with the club currently in talks for a contract extension.

He said while their finals chances appear over, he run home is still important for shaping their future.

“We are certainly not where we hoped we’d be, but improvement is rarely linear so sometimes you do take a step back and you need to take stock and build again. But certainly the ingredients are there for us to be a very strong GFL finals team,” Mellor said.

“We are always playing to win and to play some pretty good footy for a large part of the game we are definitely disappointed but we are also really clear on what our best footy looks like and we just need to be able to put that together for longer.

“We were able to match it with Leopold for significant portions of the game, to get where we need to get to we need to do it for four quarters and make it a positive result, and we are not there yet.

“In the last six games I think we play four of the top five so we have the chance to have a say on the finals make-up, a chance to put some platforms in place to build upon for next year.”

The Giants have a winnable match-up against Grovedale next weekend while the third-placed Leopold Lions have a chance to close the gap between them and the top two in their blockbuster clash with St Mary’s.

Originally published as Geelong West gives up five goal lead as Leopold pulls off comeback win